"
"You warned him of your departure," interposed Miss Garth. "Did you not
warn him of your return?"
"Not personally. My head-clerk sent him one of the circulars which were
dispatched from my office, in various directions, to announce my return.
It was the first substitute I thought of for the personal letter which
the pressure of innumerable occupations, all crowding on me together
after my long absence, did not allow me leisure to write. Barely a month
later, the first information of his marriage reached me in a letter from
himself, written on the day of the fatal accident. The circumstances
which induced him to write arose out of an event in which you must have
taken some interest--I mean the attachment between Mr. Clare's son and
Mr. Vanstone's youngest daughter."
"I cannot say that I was favorably disposed toward that attachment
at the time," replied Miss Garth. "I was ignorant then of the family
secret: I know better now."
"Exactly. The motive which you can now appreciate is the motive that
leads us to the point. The young lady herself (as I have heard from
the elder Mr. Clare, to whom I am indebted for my knowledge of the
circumstances in detail) confessed her attachment to her father, and
innocently touched him to the quick by a chance reference to his own
early life.
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